WNPS Monthly Lecture today on “The Leopards of Wilpattu National Park”

Thursday, 19 November 2020 00:42 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

Dinal Samarasinghe

The Wildlife and Nature Protection Society (WNPS) will hold its monthly lecture today online from 6.00 p.m. to discuss the leopards of Wilpattu national park.

The lecture via Zoom and FB Live will shed key insights to a stronghold population of the island’s only big cat, by expert Dinal Samarasinghe.

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WNPS said the Sri Lankan Leopard is one of eight subspecies of leopards in the world, and it is endemic to the island. This large felid is the island’s only apex predator and is categorised as an endangered subspecies by the IUCN (The International Union for Conservation of Nature) primarily due to losing ~37% of its native habitat. The lecture will provide key insights about the population of leopards in Wilpattu National Park based on a study conducted in 2018, and discuss future conservation implications. In addition, it will also provide a synopsis about the leopard, its global status, biology, and its importance in the ecosystem.

Over the last 10 years Dinal Samarasinghe has conducted research on amphibians and on the taxonomy of the water monitor complex in South Asia. Currently, his research is focused on human-wildlife conflict mitigation and carnivore/apex predator population ecology: Saltwater Crocodile and the Sri Lankan Leopard. He is a member of the amphibian, water monitor and crocodile specialist groups of the IUCN species survival commission.

The WNPS public lecture is supported by Nations Trust Bank and open to all.